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So basically I dragged my family on a weekend of Civil War goodness. I know, that sentence doesn't make much sense. It was a long and bloody war with practically no good coming out of it. But it makes for some interesting history.

Our first stop was the Battle of Hartville, a reenactment of the battle that took place January 9-11, 1863. I like the camps best, which represent the soldier's lives. Although I'm pretty sure they didn't have port-a-potties.

After we got home, there may or may not have been a discussion about going to Petit Jean and/or Pea Ridge. I very plainly stated while standing under my mother's car shed, we would be leaving at 9 am the follow day for Pea Ridge. All day she thought we were going to Petit Jean.
This happened instead:

The Battle of Pea Ridge was a devastating blow to the Confederates after successfully taking Wilson's Creek. They lost three commanders here and it sealed Missouri for Union protection. The battle raged from March 7 …

Then on May 3rd from 6 to 8 pm CST, I'm going to be on Authors in the Round. You can listen or watch online here. I'll be Skyping. Must raise computer so I don't look weird on the screen. That's an important note. This should be really exciting, but alas, you must bring your own candy.

Writing is a very solitary profession. It’s usually you and a computer (or pen and paper). That’s it. You and the blank page. Sometimes it can be overwhelming. Sometimes it can be discouraging. Sometimes it can make you want to give up and go be “normal”. That is why I think it is important for authors to have a good support system around them. I can tell you that if it weren’t for my support team as I call them I would have stopped writing and would be suffering for it. Writing is part of who I am, but sometimes I need to be reminded of that and to not give up on my dreams. My biggest supporter is my fiancé William. He believes in my like no one else, encourages me when I am down, helps me with ideas and lets me run things by him when I am working. He is even helping make my dream of writing full time slowly become a reality. When I feel like throwing my hands up and giving up, he is there to tell me I am a good writer and to keep going, keep believing in myself. I don’t know what I …

Sounds a bit like a children's book. It's not. Voting for the 2015 RONE Awards starts today, and as you know by now, Wildwood Spring is nominated in the Historical: Post Medieval category. If you wanted to tap dance over there and vote for it, I have a magic link.

Remember, though: You must have an account with InD'Tale to vote. It's really painless, I swear, and they have a really lovely magazine that they send you once a month for free with reviews, articles, and all sorts of things to keep you up on the indie and small press world. Painless. You have my word. Just create an account at InD'Tale and then you can click InD'Scribe / RONEs and select 2015 RONE Awards from the drop-down menu, then select Week Two or you can click here and be magically taken there.

Voting goes through April 26, so if you don't have time today, you have all week, but don't put it off until you forget, because...well, you'll have forgotten. Don't say, "Oopsey&quo…

It's hard to believe we're already halfway through April. I'm not sure what happened. Probably a lot of excitement last week made it go by really fast.

Not to mention my rush to finish Tell, because I was at that way too long. It was hard, there's no denying. I'm going to miss my Heckmasters when the editing is all done. For now, I've got the book and the synopsis written and I plan to let it stew for about another week before I look at it again. Then, barring changes, away it will go. I'm pretty happy with it (actually, I think it's sheer genius). Let's hope my editor likes it too.

Also, final steps are underway to bring Wildwood Spring back to Kindle and (finally) to print. I'll let you know what that happens. Just a reminder, it was nominated for an award under the Historical: Post Medieval category and I need YOUR vote. There are a lot of really good authors in the same category, so I don't expect to win, but I'd love your support, b…

Last week was a big, damn, glorious week. As I said on a status update: Everything is coming up Allison.

The lovely shine of two book releases and the Cowboy Up 2 box set going to #1 has yet to wear off. Her Heart's Surrender made the top 100 list on Amazon and got a pretty silver star on ARe. Plus, I got Wildwood Spring formatted in both ebook and print, so you'll want to keep you eyes peeled for that. The proof shipped and I can't wait to hold it.

Also, there was the issue with the car I was worried about--we thought something was wrong with the brakes, the brake guy couldn't find anything, and so my husband and father-in-law took it apart. They thought it might be a wheel bearing, but of course, wheel bearings for this model are impossible to find on short notice. Thank heavens they took it apart first, because it turns out some part of the drum on the back was rubbing something else. It cost $0 to fix, hooray! Seriously, it was a fantastic week.

You know what day it is! It's the glorious day in which Vikings are bursting into your world and stealing you away from the humdrum day you're having. It's Her Heart's Surrender release day!

You might remember me talking about this book last summer. The one that finally picked me up out of that fizzled-out stage I was in and launched me into something exciting. Ever written about Vikings before? Nope. All I knew was, I needed something different.

Vikings it was!

I have to thank some folks, because without them, this story isn't possible. First, D'Ann Lindun, because she never said, "What the hell is this?" She just said, "Give me more!" Love you, D'Ann. Second, my critique group, Traci, Allison, Faye, and Catherine. They saw the problems and helped me fix it.
Amanda, because Amanda is a wonderful, understanding editor who knows right where to polish.
All the folks at Three Worlds Press for taking a chance on me. Thank you guys!

Relax, we can all breathe again--Eban is here. The doctor is in the house. Form an orderly line to see this half demon hottie. No pushing.

When I first contracted Eban with Samhain Publishing, I was like, April?! It's coming out in April? That's right around the corner. That was in August. Everyone was like, that's nine months away, it's forever.
But for me, it wasn't. Actually, while I'm doing edits and a little re-writing to make the story better, times flies. I get a deadline and there's some panic, but I almost always make it on time. It's when the edits and the galley are finished that the waiting begins and I'm going, April? That's forever!
I can't believe we've reached the middle. I had my doubts, for sure, about whether Eban's book ought to be the middle one. He's the middle brother, so it makes sense if we're going by age, but with some of the events at the end of the book, I wondered if those should have happened ye…

Thursday night while I was probably whacked out on cold medication (this thing just lingers and lingers), I decided to reveal the cover for Wildwood Spring. I meant to re-release it in the fall and maybe do a big cover reveal, but then...I just thought, tha heck am I keeping this to myself for? See, sounds like whacked out cold medicine thoughts, huh?

Cover. Pretty. So perfect. I did it myself. Okay, I didn't cut those nice people out, I hired someone to do that, but I did the rest. Not only does it have an all-new cover, but it also has an all new tagline and blurb. Here's that thing for you:

Rumors of the legendary healing waters of Wildwood Spring feed Celia Landry's belief there's a chance to save her ailing mother. She'll brave harsh weather and even the spring's reclusive owner in order to fill a bottle.

When Celia appears at Turner Wildwood's gate half frozen and babbling about curative water, his first inclination is to turn her away, but her bravery…

Good Friday morning, kids!
Welcome to day 1 of the Spring Fever Love Is In The Air Blog Hop. I'm delighted to join in as I haven't blog hopped in a quite a while.
I love spring mornings, even though I'm not a morning person, because they always seem so full of promise. Today, I offer you the promise of reading! If you comment and leave your email address on my blog, you'll be entered to win a copy of Cowboy Up 2, a box set of contemporary cowboy novellas from six hot western authors! Yay!

I thought you'd like that. And of course, don't forget to visit the other blogs on this hop, because you could win the grand prize, a gift card! That's one of my favorite prizes.

Back to that spring thing--I'm so glad it's finally spring. Some of the trees are starting to leaf out, more have pretty little blooms, and the daffodils have popped out of the ground. The grass is so green and bright, it's almost hard to look at. There are new spring babies everywhe…

Blurb: Every day, Jessica Winters does what she does best—bury herself in patient care within the walls of the neuro intensive care unit, keeping herself busy to escape the dark sadness that controls her life. But the day she sees Matthew Moi, the intriguing man seated at her new patient’s bedside, her shattered heart begins to frantically beat once again.

As Matthew pins his mesmerizing gaze upon her, trying to distract her with his humorous and playful banter, she does her best to ignore him. Somehow he already knows a great deal about her, breaking down Jessica’s barriers and awakening her soul, drawing her out of the darkness and into his arms. When her painful past resurfaces, revealing truths that threaten her future, Jessica struggles…

At Savvy Author's Bootcamp, no one is really going to scream at me if I don't write. I like to pretend they are, though. So here we are, April 2, and I've started a new historical romance. I'm suffering from some guilt because I should finish the one I started last year. Like Tell, this has gone on way too long and it's downright pitiful.

To that negative voice, I say, shut your cakehole. I have a fresh new idea, 61 days to write 50,000 words (as opposed to Camp NaNo where I'm pounding out a sometimes strenuous 1,667 to make 50k in a month), and so far it's going really great. Normally when I start a new book, I sit down and write the first 2000-3000 words. This time, I wrote about 1100, didn't finish the scene, and said, okay, now I've got to work on Tell. Today, I talked myself into writing another 900 so I'd be at 2000 and it's time to work on Tell. There's no rush, no fuss, I'm just going at this with a determined pace. I'll …